Anna and Avery cover BepiColombo's arrival at Mercury beginning today, as the ESA/JAXA mission jettisons the transfer module that has carried it for nearly eight years and nine planetary flybys. Plus: NASA awards Blue Origin a $700 million contract to build a dedicated Mars communications orbiter, Hubble confirms a brand-new ten-sided cloud pattern at Saturn's south pole — first spotted by amateur astronomers, one of them in outback New South Wales — and China's Galactic Energy flies its reusable Pallas-1 rocket for the first time.
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00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Hey everyone, welcome back to Astronomy
00:00:02 --> 00:00:05 Daily. It's Thursday, September 3rd,
00:00:05 --> 00:00:09 2026. I'm Anna and this is series 5,
00:00:09 --> 00:00:11 episode 184.
00:00:11 --> 00:00:14 >> And I'm Avery. Anna, we've got a
00:00:14 --> 00:00:16 spacecraft doing something irreversible
00:00:16 --> 00:00:17 today.
00:00:17 --> 00:00:20 >> We do. As we're recording, Beepy
00:00:20 --> 00:00:22 Columbbo, the European and Japanese
00:00:22 --> 00:00:25 mission to Mercury, is throwing away the
00:00:25 --> 00:00:26 module that got it there.
00:00:26 --> 00:00:29 >> Throwing away sounds harsh. It's
00:00:29 --> 00:00:32 accurate though. Eight years, nine
00:00:32 --> 00:00:34 planetary flybys, one very serious
00:00:34 --> 00:00:37 engine problem, and today the transfer
00:00:37 --> 00:00:39 module gets cut loose, and the two
00:00:39 --> 00:00:41 science orbiters are on their own. It's
00:00:41 --> 00:00:43 the start of the arrival phase.
00:00:43 --> 00:00:47 >> That's our lead. Then NASA has just
00:00:47 --> 00:00:50 handed Blue Origin $700 million to build
00:00:50 --> 00:00:53 the internet connection for Mars,
00:00:53 --> 00:00:54 >> which is a much bigger deal than it
00:00:54 --> 00:00:55 sounds.
00:00:55 --> 00:00:59 >> It really is. Then Saturn has grown a
00:00:59 --> 00:01:01 new shape at its south pole and nobody
00:01:01 --> 00:01:04 expected it. And an Australian in Broken
00:01:04 --> 00:01:07 Hill is part of how we found out.
00:01:07 --> 00:01:10 >> Love that story. And then a second
00:01:10 --> 00:01:12 Chinese private company has flown a
00:01:12 --> 00:01:14 reusable rocket 3 weeks after the first
00:01:14 --> 00:01:15 one.
00:01:15 --> 00:01:17 >> Plus, we'll get you sorted for the sky
00:01:17 --> 00:01:20 tonight. Both hemispheres as always.
00:01:20 --> 00:01:22 >> Let's get into it.
00:01:22 --> 00:01:24 >> Okay. Set the scene for me. What is
00:01:24 --> 00:01:27 physically happening today? So Bey
00:01:27 --> 00:01:29 Columbo has flown to Mercury as a stack.
00:01:30 --> 00:01:32 Three pieces bolted together. At the
00:01:32 --> 00:01:34 bottom, you've got the Mercury transfer
00:01:34 --> 00:01:36 module. That's the ion engine bus, the
00:01:36 --> 00:01:38 thing with the enormous solar wings
00:01:38 --> 00:01:40 that's been doing the driving. On top of
00:01:40 --> 00:01:43 that sits the European orbiter, the
00:01:43 --> 00:01:45 Mercury Planetary Orbiter. And on top of
00:01:45 --> 00:01:48 that sits the Japanese one, MO, the
00:01:48 --> 00:01:50 Mercury Magneettospheric Orbiter.
00:01:50 --> 00:01:53 >> Three spacecraft in a tower.
00:01:53 --> 00:01:56 >> A tower. And today at around 8 in the
00:01:56 --> 00:01:59 morning US Eastern time, which is about
00:01:59 --> 00:02:01 10 o'clock tonight for us in Sydney, the
00:02:01 --> 00:02:04 transfer module separates.
00:02:04 --> 00:02:07 It live. They start the broadcast a bit
00:02:07 --> 00:02:10 before, pause it, and come back about an
00:02:10 --> 00:02:11 hour later to confirm they've got a
00:02:11 --> 00:02:13 signal from what is now for the first
00:02:13 --> 00:02:16 time an independent spacecraft.
00:02:16 --> 00:02:18 >> And there's no putting it back together.
00:02:18 --> 00:02:22 >> None. That's why today matters. Up to
00:02:22 --> 00:02:23 this point, if something went wrong, you
00:02:23 --> 00:02:26 still had the propulsion module. From
00:02:26 --> 00:02:28 today, the ion engines are gone.
00:02:28 --> 00:02:29 Everything after this runs on the
00:02:29 --> 00:02:31 orbiter's own chemical thrusters.
00:02:32 --> 00:02:36 >> Take me back. This launched in 2018,
00:02:36 --> 00:02:40 >> October 20th, 2018, on an Aron 5 out of
00:02:40 --> 00:02:43 Kuru. So, we are 3 weeks shy of 8 years.
00:02:43 --> 00:02:45 >> 8 years to reach the closest planet to
00:02:46 --> 00:02:48 the sun, which sounds backwards.
00:02:48 --> 00:02:50 >> It sounds backwards. And it's the single
00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 most counterintuitive thing about
00:02:52 --> 00:02:54 Mercury. If you point a rocket at
00:02:54 --> 00:02:56 Mercury and just let go, you don't
00:02:56 --> 00:02:59 gently arrive, you fall. The sun's
00:02:59 --> 00:03:01 gravity well is enormous, and you pick
00:03:01 --> 00:03:03 up speed the whole way down. The hard
00:03:03 --> 00:03:05 part isn't getting there. The hard part
00:03:05 --> 00:03:08 is arriving slowly enough that Mercury's
00:03:08 --> 00:03:10 very weak gravity can actually catch
00:03:10 --> 00:03:10 you.
00:03:10 --> 00:03:12 >> So, the whole mission is a breaking
00:03:12 --> 00:03:13 problem.
00:03:13 --> 00:03:16 >> The whole mission is a breaking problem.
00:03:16 --> 00:03:18 that be Columbbo has used one flyby of
00:03:18 --> 00:03:22 Earth, two of Venus, and six of Mercury
00:03:22 --> 00:03:25 itself, the last of those in January
00:03:25 --> 00:03:26 2025,
00:03:26 --> 00:03:29 plus years of continuous, very gentle
00:03:29 --> 00:03:32 thrusting from those ion engines. All of
00:03:32 --> 00:03:35 it to shed speed rather than gain it.
00:03:35 --> 00:03:38 >> Nine flybys. That's more than most
00:03:38 --> 00:03:41 missions do in a lifetime. And there's a
00:03:41 --> 00:03:43 lovely bit of history in that because
00:03:43 --> 00:03:45 the mission is named after the man who
00:03:46 --> 00:03:49 invented that technique. Jeppe Colombo
00:03:49 --> 00:03:51 bey to everyone who knew him was an
00:03:52 --> 00:03:54 Italian mathematician who worked out in
00:03:54 --> 00:03:57 1974 that if you shaped Mariner 10's
00:03:57 --> 00:03:59 trajectory correctly, you could get
00:03:59 --> 00:04:01 repeat visits to Mercury instead of just
00:04:01 --> 00:04:04 one. He also figured out why Mercury
00:04:04 --> 00:04:06 rotates three times for every two
00:04:06 --> 00:04:08 orbits. So, the mission carries the name
00:04:08 --> 00:04:10 of the person who made this kind of
00:04:10 --> 00:04:12 flight possible at all.
00:04:12 --> 00:04:15 >> Now, you said one very serious engine
00:04:16 --> 00:04:17 problem.
00:04:17 --> 00:04:20 >> Yes. April 2024. The team found
00:04:20 --> 00:04:22 unexpected electric currents flowing
00:04:22 --> 00:04:24 between the transfer module solar arrays
00:04:24 --> 00:04:27 and one of its power distribution units.
00:04:27 --> 00:04:29 The practical effect was that there
00:04:29 --> 00:04:30 wasn't enough power reaching the
00:04:30 --> 00:04:32 electric thrusters, so they couldn't run
00:04:32 --> 00:04:34 at full thrust.
00:04:34 --> 00:04:36 >> How much did they lose? They clawed back
00:04:36 --> 00:04:39 most of it. Engineers got the thrusters
00:04:39 --> 00:04:42 to about 90% of original performance,
00:04:42 --> 00:04:44 but 90% wasn't enough for the trajectory
00:04:44 --> 00:04:47 they were flying. Santa Martinez, the
00:04:47 --> 00:04:49 mission manager, put it plainly at the
00:04:49 --> 00:04:52 time. After months of investigation,
00:04:52 --> 00:04:54 they concluded the thrusters would stay
00:04:54 --> 00:04:56 below the minimum thrust needed for the
00:04:56 --> 00:04:57 orbit insertion they'd planned for
00:04:57 --> 00:05:00 December 2025.
00:05:00 --> 00:05:02 >> So, they redesigned the arrival.
00:05:02 --> 00:05:05 >> They redesigned the arrival. new
00:05:05 --> 00:05:07 trajectory, a revised set of flybys, and
00:05:07 --> 00:05:10 the arrival slipped by 11 months from
00:05:10 --> 00:05:13 December 2025 to November this year,
00:05:13 --> 00:05:15 which is why we're talking about it now
00:05:15 --> 00:05:17 rather than last Christmas.
00:05:17 --> 00:05:20 >> 11 months is a long slip. Was anything
00:05:20 --> 00:05:21 gained?
00:05:21 --> 00:05:24 >> A bit, actually. Johannes Benov, the
00:05:24 --> 00:05:26 project scientist, made the point that
00:05:26 --> 00:05:28 the extra time flew the instruments
00:05:28 --> 00:05:30 through parts of Mercury's environment
00:05:30 --> 00:05:32 they'd never otherwise have sampled.
00:05:32 --> 00:05:35 It's not compensation for the delay, but
00:05:35 --> 00:05:37 it isn't nothing either.
00:05:37 --> 00:05:40 >> All right, so today the module goes,
00:05:40 --> 00:05:42 what's the calendar from here?
00:05:42 --> 00:05:45 >> It's a slow staged arrival. November
00:05:45 --> 00:05:48 21st is gravity capture. That's when
00:05:48 --> 00:05:50 Mercury actually takes hold of both
00:05:50 --> 00:05:52 orbiters. Then in the second week of
00:05:52 --> 00:05:55 December, around the 9th and 10th, MO is
00:05:55 --> 00:05:57 released into its own very stretched
00:05:57 --> 00:06:00 orbit. About a week after that, the
00:06:00 --> 00:06:02 European Orbiter starts working its way
00:06:02 --> 00:06:04 down. It reaches its final science orbit
00:06:04 --> 00:06:07 on March 10th next year, and routine
00:06:07 --> 00:06:09 science operations formally begin on
00:06:09 --> 00:06:12 April 6th, 2027.
00:06:12 --> 00:06:14 >> So, today is the beginning of a 7-month
00:06:14 --> 00:06:16 arrival.
00:06:16 --> 00:06:17 >> That's exactly the right way to think
00:06:17 --> 00:06:20 about it. Nobody's landing. Nobody's
00:06:20 --> 00:06:23 breaking hard. It's a long, careful
00:06:23 --> 00:06:24 settling in.
00:06:24 --> 00:06:26 >> And the two orbiters end up in quite
00:06:26 --> 00:06:29 different places. deliberately. So, the
00:06:29 --> 00:06:32 European orbiter goes low and tight,
00:06:32 --> 00:06:35 roughly 480 kilometers at its closest,
00:06:35 --> 00:06:38 1500 at its furthest. That's the mapping
00:06:38 --> 00:06:41 orbit, minology, elemental composition,
00:06:41 --> 00:06:44 the surface at a range of wavelengths.
00:06:44 --> 00:06:46 MO goes much higher and much more
00:06:46 --> 00:06:49 elliptical out to something like 11
00:06:49 --> 00:06:51 km because it's chasing the magnetic
00:06:51 --> 00:06:53 field and the particles and you need to
00:06:53 --> 00:06:55 fly through a big volume of space to
00:06:55 --> 00:06:57 sample that properly.
00:06:57 --> 00:06:59 Which brings me to the thing I actually
00:06:59 --> 00:07:02 want to know. What are the questions?
00:07:02 --> 00:07:04 >> Three big ones and they're all genuinely
00:07:04 --> 00:07:07 strange. The first is the magnetic
00:07:07 --> 00:07:09 field. Mercury is small. It should have
00:07:09 --> 00:07:11 cooled and frozen solid billions of
00:07:11 --> 00:07:13 years ago. And yet it has a global
00:07:13 --> 00:07:16 magnetic field. Of the rocky planets,
00:07:16 --> 00:07:19 only Earth and Mercury do. So something
00:07:19 --> 00:07:20 inside it is still liquid and still
00:07:20 --> 00:07:22 moving. And we don't have a settled
00:07:22 --> 00:07:25 explanation for that. And Mercury's core
00:07:25 --> 00:07:27 is huge, isn't it?
00:07:27 --> 00:07:29 >> Enormous relative to the planet. The
00:07:29 --> 00:07:32 iron core takes up something like 85% of
00:07:32 --> 00:07:35 the radius. Mercury is essentially a
00:07:35 --> 00:07:37 metal ball with a thin coat of rock on
00:07:37 --> 00:07:40 it, and nobody is entirely sure why.
00:07:40 --> 00:07:41 >> Second question,
00:07:42 --> 00:07:44 >> ice. There is water ice sitting in
00:07:44 --> 00:07:45 permanently shadowed craters at
00:07:46 --> 00:07:48 Mercury's poles. On the planet closest
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 to the sun, where the dayside gets to
00:07:51 --> 00:07:54 well over 400° C, the floors of some
00:07:54 --> 00:07:56 polar craters never see sunlight, so
00:07:56 --> 00:07:59 they stay cold enough to hold ice. But
00:07:59 --> 00:08:01 where it came from and how much there is
00:08:01 --> 00:08:03 is open.
00:08:03 --> 00:08:04 >> And the third,
00:08:04 --> 00:08:07 >> the hollows. These are my favorite.
00:08:07 --> 00:08:09 Messenger, the last mission to orbit
00:08:09 --> 00:08:11 Mercury, found these bright, shallow,
00:08:11 --> 00:08:13 irregular pits scattered across the
00:08:13 --> 00:08:16 surface. No impact structure, no
00:08:16 --> 00:08:18 volcanic vent, just ground that appears
00:08:18 --> 00:08:21 to be disappearing. The best guess is
00:08:21 --> 00:08:23 some volatile material in the rock is
00:08:23 --> 00:08:25 sublimating straight to gas and leaving
00:08:25 --> 00:08:28 the hollow behind. And they look fresh.
00:08:28 --> 00:08:30 There's a real possibility Mercury's
00:08:30 --> 00:08:33 surface is actively changing right now,
00:08:33 --> 00:08:34 which is not something you expect from a
00:08:34 --> 00:08:36 dead little world.
00:08:36 --> 00:08:38 >> How many times have we actually been to
00:08:38 --> 00:08:40 Mercury before this?
00:08:40 --> 00:08:43 >> Barely. Two missions ever. Mariner 10
00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 did three flybys in 1974 and 75.
00:08:47 --> 00:08:51 Messenger orbited from 2011 to 2015.
00:08:51 --> 00:08:53 That's it. It is the least explored
00:08:53 --> 00:08:55 planet in the inner solar system by a
00:08:55 --> 00:08:57 very wide margin.
00:08:57 --> 00:09:00 >> And is there an Australian thread here?
00:09:00 --> 00:09:01 There usually is.
00:09:01 --> 00:09:04 >> There is, and it's a nice one. ISA
00:09:04 --> 00:09:06 tracks its deep space missions through a
00:09:06 --> 00:09:08 network that includes New Norsia in
00:09:08 --> 00:09:11 Western Australia, north of Perth. and
00:09:11 --> 00:09:13 issa opened a brand new deep space
00:09:13 --> 00:09:15 antenna at that site in October last
00:09:15 --> 00:09:17 year, working with CSRO.
00:09:18 --> 00:09:19 Southern Hemisphere ground stations
00:09:19 --> 00:09:21 aren't a courtesy on missions like this.
00:09:21 --> 00:09:23 They're how you keep a spacecraft in
00:09:23 --> 00:09:25 contact as the Earth turns.
00:09:25 --> 00:09:27 >> So, what should people actually watch
00:09:27 --> 00:09:28 for today?
00:09:28 --> 00:09:32 >> Signal acquisition. That's the moment.
00:09:32 --> 00:09:34 Separation itself is a mechanical event
00:09:34 --> 00:09:36 you can't really see. The thing that
00:09:36 --> 00:09:38 tells you it worked is the ground
00:09:38 --> 00:09:40 station hearing a healthy carrier from a
00:09:40 --> 00:09:43 spacecraft that an hour earlier didn't
00:09:43 --> 00:09:46 exist as an independent object. If that
00:09:46 --> 00:09:49 comes through clean, Bey Columbo is
00:09:49 --> 00:09:51 genuinely on approach.
00:09:51 --> 00:09:54 >> Right. Second story. And this one is
00:09:54 --> 00:09:57 about plumbing, but the good kind. NASA
00:09:58 --> 00:10:00 announced on Tuesday, September 1st,
00:10:00 --> 00:10:03 that it has awarded Blue Origin a firm
00:10:03 --> 00:10:06 fixedpric contract worth about 700
00:10:06 --> 00:10:08 million to build the Mars
00:10:08 --> 00:10:10 Telecommunications Network,
00:10:10 --> 00:10:12 >> which is not a science mission.
00:10:12 --> 00:10:15 >> Deliberately not. This is a dedicated
00:10:15 --> 00:10:18 communications orbiter. Its entire job
00:10:18 --> 00:10:21 is relaying science data, imagery,
00:10:21 --> 00:10:23 navigation information, and mission
00:10:23 --> 00:10:26 commands for anything operating on or
00:10:26 --> 00:10:29 around Mars. No instruments of its own
00:10:29 --> 00:10:32 competing for power and pointing time.
00:10:32 --> 00:10:34 >> And that's the change, isn't it? Because
00:10:34 --> 00:10:36 right now, that job is done by science
00:10:36 --> 00:10:38 orbiters moonlighting.
00:10:38 --> 00:10:40 >> Exactly right. Every picture you have
00:10:40 --> 00:10:43 ever seen from Curiosity or Perseverance
00:10:43 --> 00:10:46 came home through Mars Odyssey or the
00:10:46 --> 00:10:49 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Odyssey
00:10:49 --> 00:10:54 launched in 2001. MRO launched in 2005.
00:10:54 --> 00:10:56 Odyssey is 25 years old and it's
00:10:56 --> 00:10:58 carrying the data return for a whole
00:10:58 --> 00:11:00 planet as a side hustle.
00:11:00 --> 00:11:02 >> And people have been sounding the alarm
00:11:02 --> 00:11:04 about that for years.
00:11:04 --> 00:11:07 >> For years. The worry has always been the
00:11:07 --> 00:11:10 same. If one of those two fails, surface
00:11:10 --> 00:11:13 missions don't go quiet exactly, but
00:11:13 --> 00:11:15 their data rates fall off a cliff. You'd
00:11:16 --> 00:11:18 be choosing which images come home.
00:11:18 --> 00:11:20 >> So, what's Blue Origin actually
00:11:20 --> 00:11:21 building?
00:11:21 --> 00:11:24 >> It's based on their Blue Ring platform,
00:11:24 --> 00:11:26 a hybrid spacecraft that uses both
00:11:26 --> 00:11:28 solar, electric, and chemical
00:11:28 --> 00:11:31 propulsion. It launches on New Glenn.
00:11:31 --> 00:11:35 Delivery deadline is December 31st, 2028
00:11:35 --> 00:11:38 and NASA expects it operational at Mars
00:11:38 --> 00:11:39 by 2030.
00:11:39 --> 00:11:42 >> And the contract is design, develop,
00:11:42 --> 00:11:45 launch, and operate. All four.
00:11:45 --> 00:11:48 >> All four. That's the interesting bit.
00:11:48 --> 00:11:50 Structurally, NASA isn't buying a
00:11:50 --> 00:11:53 spacecraft. It's buying a service. The
00:11:53 --> 00:11:55 same way it now buys communications
00:11:55 --> 00:11:57 around the Earth and the Moon. It sits
00:11:58 --> 00:11:59 under the space communications and
00:12:00 --> 00:12:02 navigation program and it follows a
00:12:02 --> 00:12:05 request for proposals NASA put out back
00:12:05 --> 00:12:06 in May.
00:12:06 --> 00:12:07 >> Who else was in the running?
00:12:07 --> 00:12:10 >> Rocket Lab was the other finalist. So,
00:12:10 --> 00:12:13 this was a real competition, not a sole
00:12:13 --> 00:12:14 source award.
00:12:14 --> 00:12:16 >> And Blue Origin does have Mars form now,
00:12:16 --> 00:12:19 which they didn't have two years ago.
00:12:19 --> 00:12:22 >> That's the part I'd flag. New Glenn's
00:12:22 --> 00:12:24 second flight in November last year
00:12:24 --> 00:12:27 carried NASA's twin escapade probes to
00:12:27 --> 00:12:30 Mars and landed its booster for the
00:12:30 --> 00:12:32 first time on the same mission. So, the
00:12:32 --> 00:12:34 pitch here isn't theoretical.
00:12:34 --> 00:12:37 >> And the longer game is crude missions.
00:12:37 --> 00:12:39 >> That's stated fairly openly in the
00:12:39 --> 00:12:41 announcement. If you're serious about
00:12:41 --> 00:12:44 people at Mars in the late 2030s or
00:12:44 --> 00:12:47 2040s, you cannot run that on two
00:12:47 --> 00:12:49 orbiters built in the Clinton and Bush
00:12:49 --> 00:12:51 administrations. You need infrastructure
00:12:52 --> 00:12:54 that's designed to be infrastructure.
00:12:54 --> 00:12:57 >> It's the least glamorous $700 million
00:12:57 --> 00:13:00 NASA will spend this decade and probably
00:13:00 --> 00:13:02 one of the more important.
00:13:02 --> 00:13:05 >> Nobody's ever made a poster of a relay
00:13:05 --> 00:13:07 satellite, but nothing else works
00:13:07 --> 00:13:08 without it.
00:13:08 --> 00:13:11 >> Now, this one is just lovely. Saturn's
00:13:11 --> 00:13:13 south pole has a 10-sided shape around
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 it, and it wasn't there before.
00:13:16 --> 00:13:21 >> 10-sided. A decagon. A decagon published
00:13:21 --> 00:13:23 in science advances yesterday, September
00:13:23 --> 00:13:26 2nd, led by Augustine Sanchez Lagga at
00:13:26 --> 00:13:28 the University of the Bas country in
00:13:28 --> 00:13:31 Spain with Amy Simon at NASA Goddard and
00:13:31 --> 00:13:33 Michael Wong at UC Berkeley among the
00:13:33 --> 00:13:34 co-authors.
00:13:34 --> 00:13:36 >> And we already knew Saturn does this at
00:13:36 --> 00:13:38 the other pole.
00:13:38 --> 00:13:40 >> That's the famous one, the northern
00:13:40 --> 00:13:43 hexagon, six-sided, been known since
00:13:43 --> 00:13:46 Voyager in the 1980s, and it is rock
00:13:46 --> 00:13:49 solid. Amy Simon's line is that it has
00:13:49 --> 00:13:51 been there every single time anyone has
00:13:51 --> 00:13:54 looked for more than 40 years.
00:13:54 --> 00:13:56 >> So why has nobody seen a southern one
00:13:56 --> 00:13:57 before?
00:13:57 --> 00:13:59 >> Because we couldn't look. Saturn is
00:14:00 --> 00:14:02 tilted like Earth and it takes about 30
00:14:02 --> 00:14:05 years to go around the sun. Between
00:14:05 --> 00:14:08 roughly 2012 and 2023, the South Pole
00:14:08 --> 00:14:11 was simply turned away from us. It has
00:14:11 --> 00:14:13 only recently come back into view.
00:14:14 --> 00:14:16 >> And who spotted it? This is the part I
00:14:16 --> 00:14:19 love. Amateur astronomers. The first
00:14:19 --> 00:14:21 hint turned up in groundbased images in
00:14:21 --> 00:14:25 2024. A subtle undulating band around
00:14:25 --> 00:14:27 the pole in pictures submitted to
00:14:27 --> 00:14:29 something called the planetary virtual
00:14:29 --> 00:14:31 observatory laboratory which is a
00:14:31 --> 00:14:33 database professionals use to mine
00:14:33 --> 00:14:36 amateur planetary imagery. Two observers
00:14:36 --> 00:14:39 are credited. Jean Paul O and Trevor
00:14:39 --> 00:14:41 Barry. Trevor Barry as in
00:14:41 --> 00:14:45 >> as in Broken Hill, New South Wales, far
00:14:45 --> 00:14:47 western outback, New South Wales. He's a
00:14:47 --> 00:14:49 former miner who built his own
00:14:49 --> 00:14:51 observatory. He's been imaging Saturn
00:14:51 --> 00:14:53 for the better part of two decades. He's
00:14:53 --> 00:14:56 won an Astronomical Society of Australia
00:14:56 --> 00:14:58 award for it, and he has a long history
00:14:58 --> 00:15:00 of contributing to exactly this kind of
00:15:00 --> 00:15:02 professional work.
00:15:02 --> 00:15:04 >> So, a bloke in Broken Hill helps find a
00:15:04 --> 00:15:06 new feature on Saturn.
00:15:06 --> 00:15:08 >> And then Hubble goes and confirms it.
00:15:08 --> 00:15:10 Once they knew what to look for, the
00:15:10 --> 00:15:12 team went into Hubble's Opal program,
00:15:12 --> 00:15:14 that's the longrunning survey that
00:15:14 --> 00:15:16 photographs the outer planets every
00:15:16 --> 00:15:18 year, and found the decagon sitting
00:15:18 --> 00:15:21 there in data going back to 2023 with
00:15:21 --> 00:15:23 observations running through late August
00:15:23 --> 00:15:24 last year.
00:15:24 --> 00:15:27 >> How big is it in Earth terms?
00:15:27 --> 00:15:29 >> I'm going to be careful here because
00:15:29 --> 00:15:31 some of the coverage yesterday quoted a
00:15:31 --> 00:15:34 width that's larger than Saturn itself,
00:15:34 --> 00:15:36 which obviously can't be right. The
00:15:36 --> 00:15:38 official releases don't put a hard
00:15:38 --> 00:15:40 number on it. What we can say
00:15:40 --> 00:15:42 confidently is that it's the same class
00:15:42 --> 00:15:45 of feature as the hexagon. A planet
00:15:45 --> 00:15:48 scale wave locked inside a polar jetream
00:15:48 --> 00:15:51 tens of thousands of kilome across. I'd
00:15:51 --> 00:15:53 rather wait for the paper's own figures
00:15:53 --> 00:15:55 than repeat one that doesn't survive a
00:15:55 --> 00:15:56 sanity check.
00:15:56 --> 00:16:00 >> Fair. And why 10 sides rather than six?
00:16:00 --> 00:16:02 >> The mechanism is thought to be the same
00:16:02 --> 00:16:05 in both cases. a meandering wave trapped
00:16:05 --> 00:16:08 inside a fast polar jet. The number of
00:16:08 --> 00:16:10 sides falls out of how fast and how wide
00:16:10 --> 00:16:13 that jet is. Different jet, different
00:16:13 --> 00:16:13 number.
00:16:14 --> 00:16:16 >> And the really interesting difference is
00:16:16 --> 00:16:17 the age.
00:16:17 --> 00:16:19 >> That's the headline for scientists. The
00:16:19 --> 00:16:22 hexagon is old and stable. This thing
00:16:22 --> 00:16:24 looks new. And Simon's assessment is
00:16:24 --> 00:16:26 that it appears to be strengthening,
00:16:26 --> 00:16:28 which means for the first time we get to
00:16:28 --> 00:16:30 watch one of these form rather than
00:16:30 --> 00:16:32 inheriting a finished one. The plan is
00:16:32 --> 00:16:35 to keep tracking it with Hubble and JWST
00:16:35 --> 00:16:37 as sunlight builds toward the southern
00:16:37 --> 00:16:40 summer over the next few years and see
00:16:40 --> 00:16:42 whether it settles or falls apart.
00:16:42 --> 00:16:45 >> A planet size geometry experiment
00:16:45 --> 00:16:46 running in real time.
00:16:46 --> 00:16:48 >> And we're on the right side of the
00:16:48 --> 00:16:50 planet to appreciate it, which we'll
00:16:50 --> 00:16:52 come back to in a few minutes.
00:16:52 --> 00:16:54 >> Last news story, and it's another one
00:16:54 --> 00:16:56 for the Chinese commercial launch
00:16:56 --> 00:16:59 column. Galactic Energy flew its Palace
00:16:59 --> 00:17:02 One rocket for the first time. That was
00:17:02 --> 00:17:05 late on August 31st, US Eastern time.
00:17:05 --> 00:17:08 So, morning of September 1st in China
00:17:08 --> 00:17:10 out of the Ju Kuan launch center
00:17:10 --> 00:17:12 >> and it worked.
00:17:12 --> 00:17:15 >> Clean debut. The company says it reached
00:17:15 --> 00:17:17 its planned orbit about 30 minutes after
00:17:17 --> 00:17:20 liftoff. First flight of a brand new
00:17:20 --> 00:17:22 vehicle straight to orbit, which is not
00:17:22 --> 00:17:23 a given.
00:17:23 --> 00:17:27 >> Give me the numbers. 52 m tall, so a bit
00:17:27 --> 00:17:31 over 170 ft. About 7 tons to low Earth
00:17:32 --> 00:17:35 orbit. And crucially, the first stage is
00:17:35 --> 00:17:37 built to be reusable. Hypersonic grid
00:17:37 --> 00:17:40 fins, deployable landing legs rated for
00:17:40 --> 00:17:44 up to 25 flights. If that specification
00:17:44 --> 00:17:46 sounds familiar, it's because it's
00:17:46 --> 00:17:48 essentially the Falcon 9 playbook.
00:17:48 --> 00:17:50 >> Did they try to land it?
00:17:50 --> 00:17:54 >> No. Hardware was fitted, but no recovery
00:17:54 --> 00:17:56 attempt on a maiden flight. They're
00:17:56 --> 00:17:59 targeting the second half of 2027 for
00:17:59 --> 00:18:00 the first landing try.
00:18:00 --> 00:18:02 >> Now, the reason this matters isn't
00:18:02 --> 00:18:04 really the rocket on its own.
00:18:04 --> 00:18:07 >> No, it's the pattern. Look at the last 8
00:18:07 --> 00:18:10 weeks in China. July 10th, a long march
00:18:10 --> 00:18:13 10B, that's the state program, launches
00:18:14 --> 00:18:16 and catches its first stage in a net
00:18:16 --> 00:18:18 strung across a ship at sea, making
00:18:18 --> 00:18:21 China only the second country ever to
00:18:21 --> 00:18:24 recover an orbital class booster. Mid
00:18:24 --> 00:18:28 August, Land Space lands Juke 3 on legs,
00:18:28 --> 00:18:31 the first Chinese private company to do
00:18:31 --> 00:18:33 it, though, as we covered at the time,
00:18:33 --> 00:18:35 it caught fire and toppled over after
00:18:36 --> 00:18:39 touchdown. And now, three weeks later, a
00:18:39 --> 00:18:42 second private company debuts a vehicle
00:18:42 --> 00:18:45 with recovery hardware already on it.
00:18:45 --> 00:18:46 >> Three different programs, three
00:18:46 --> 00:18:49 different approaches in under two
00:18:49 --> 00:18:49 months.
00:18:50 --> 00:18:52 >> And there's a clear commercial driver.
00:18:52 --> 00:18:54 China is building out very large
00:18:54 --> 00:18:57 satellite constellations, Gul Wong,
00:18:57 --> 00:19:00 Chiian Fan, and you cannot deploy tens
00:19:00 --> 00:19:02 of thousands of satellites on expendable
00:19:02 --> 00:19:06 rockets at any sensible price. Galactic
00:19:06 --> 00:19:08 Energy is quite openly positioning
00:19:08 --> 00:19:12 Palace 1 as a constellation workhorse.
00:19:12 --> 00:19:13 >> And this isn't a startup with no track
00:19:13 --> 00:19:14 record.
00:19:14 --> 00:19:18 >> Not at all. They already fly series 1, a
00:19:18 --> 00:19:21 small satellite launcher with more than
00:19:21 --> 00:19:24 20 flights behind it. So Palace 1 is a
00:19:24 --> 00:19:27 step up, not a first attempt.
00:19:27 --> 00:19:30 >> The thing I'd watch is 2027.
00:19:30 --> 00:19:32 Landing is the hard part, and everyone's
00:19:32 --> 00:19:34 landing attempt is still ahead of them,
00:19:34 --> 00:19:37 right? Let's get you outside. And we
00:19:37 --> 00:19:38 have to start with Saturn tonight for
00:19:38 --> 00:19:40 obvious reasons.
00:19:40 --> 00:19:42 >> After that segment, it would be rude not
00:19:42 --> 00:19:43 to.
00:19:43 --> 00:19:45 >> Saturn is rising around sunset now and
00:19:45 --> 00:19:47 it's up for most of the night over in
00:19:47 --> 00:19:50 Aquarius, sitting at about magnitude
00:19:50 --> 00:19:52 plus 0.4.
00:19:52 --> 00:19:54 It's building toward opposition on
00:19:54 --> 00:19:56 October 4th. So, it gets a little better
00:19:56 --> 00:19:58 every night for the next month.
00:19:58 --> 00:20:00 >> And the rings are doing something
00:20:00 --> 00:20:03 unusual. They're tilted only about 8°
00:20:03 --> 00:20:05 from edge on, close to the narrowest
00:20:05 --> 00:20:08 they've been in a dozen years, which
00:20:08 --> 00:20:09 some people find disappointing, and I
00:20:09 --> 00:20:12 think is the opposite. When the rings
00:20:12 --> 00:20:14 are nearly closed, the moons line up in
00:20:14 --> 00:20:17 a much tighter row, and the globe of the
00:20:17 --> 00:20:20 planet is easier to see detail on. It's
00:20:20 --> 00:20:21 a different Saturn.
00:20:22 --> 00:20:24 >> Southern Hemisphere advantage tonight.
00:20:24 --> 00:20:27 >> A real one from Sydney. Saturn climbs
00:20:27 --> 00:20:29 high overhead, so you're looking through
00:20:29 --> 00:20:31 much less atmosphere than northern
00:20:31 --> 00:20:33 observers who get it lower in the
00:20:33 --> 00:20:35 southern sky. If you've got a telescope
00:20:35 --> 00:20:37 and you've been meaning to use it, this
00:20:37 --> 00:20:40 is the month. And to be clear, the
00:20:40 --> 00:20:42 decagon we just talked about is far
00:20:42 --> 00:20:44 beyond a backyard scope. That's a Hubble
00:20:44 --> 00:20:47 class detection. What you can see is the
00:20:47 --> 00:20:49 ring tilt and the moons.
00:20:49 --> 00:20:51 >> For North American listeners
00:20:51 --> 00:20:53 specifically, the big one is tonight's
00:20:53 --> 00:20:54 moon.
00:20:54 --> 00:20:57 Yes, the moon passes very close to the
00:20:57 --> 00:20:59 Pletes tonight and it's an actual
00:20:59 --> 00:21:01 occultation from North America, from
00:21:01 --> 00:21:04 East Asia, and from Arctic latitudes.
00:21:04 --> 00:21:06 The cluster stars wink out behind the
00:21:06 --> 00:21:09 lunar limb. If that's you, that's your
00:21:09 --> 00:21:12 event, and binoculars are plenty. And
00:21:12 --> 00:21:12 from here,
00:21:12 --> 00:21:15 >> from Australia, New Zealand, the moon
00:21:15 --> 00:21:18 and the pletes rise together in the
00:21:18 --> 00:21:21 small hours as a close, pretty pairing,
00:21:21 --> 00:21:23 but no occultation.
00:21:23 --> 00:21:25 Worth setting an alarm for if you're up
00:21:25 --> 00:21:26 anyway.
00:21:26 --> 00:21:28 >> Moon phase
00:21:28 --> 00:21:30 >> waning gibus and it hits last quarter
00:21:30 --> 00:21:33 tomorrow, September 4th. Practically
00:21:33 --> 00:21:36 that means it rises late. So the early
00:21:36 --> 00:21:38 evening is dark, which is good news for
00:21:38 --> 00:21:39 the next one.
00:21:39 --> 00:21:43 >> Venus. Venus is the unmissable one. Low
00:21:43 --> 00:21:46 in the west to west southwest, roughly
00:21:46 --> 00:21:48 14 degrees up an hour after sunset from
00:21:48 --> 00:21:51 Sydney. Sunset here is about 5:35 in the
00:21:51 --> 00:21:53 afternoon at the moment. It's just
00:21:53 --> 00:21:55 pulled away from Spya after their
00:21:55 --> 00:21:57 conjunction on Monday night, and it's
00:21:57 --> 00:21:59 building toward greatest brilliancy on
00:21:59 --> 00:22:02 September 18th. There's a beautiful thin
00:22:02 --> 00:22:04 crescent moon alongside it on the 14th.
00:22:04 --> 00:22:07 So, mark that one. Pre-dawn,
00:22:07 --> 00:22:09 >> Jupiter is back and it's worth the early
00:22:09 --> 00:22:12 start, rising east northeast around 10
00:22:12 --> 00:22:15 to 4 in the morning. Mars is also there,
00:22:16 --> 00:22:18 low and slowly fading. And tonight, it
00:22:18 --> 00:22:20 makes a triangle with Beetlejuice and
00:22:20 --> 00:22:22 Elnath if you want a target to find.
00:22:22 --> 00:22:24 >> And there's a Jupiter event coming for
00:22:24 --> 00:22:26 North America.
00:22:26 --> 00:22:28 >> There is. On September 8th, the moon
00:22:28 --> 00:22:31 occults Jupiter, visible from Canada,
00:22:31 --> 00:22:33 the United States, Mexico, Greenland,
00:22:34 --> 00:22:36 the Caribbean, and Eastern Russia. The
00:22:36 --> 00:22:37 catch is that for most of that
00:22:37 --> 00:22:39 footprint, it happens in daylight with
00:22:40 --> 00:22:42 the sun above the horizon.
00:22:42 --> 00:22:43 >> Which brings us to the standing
00:22:43 --> 00:22:44 reminder.
00:22:44 --> 00:22:46 >> It does, and it applies to that
00:22:46 --> 00:22:48 occultation directly. If you are
00:22:48 --> 00:22:51 observing anywhere near the sun, take it
00:22:51 --> 00:22:53 seriously. Any filter you use for direct
00:22:54 --> 00:22:56 solar viewing must be certified to the
00:22:56 --> 00:22:59 ISO12312-2
00:22:59 --> 00:23:02 standard, not sunglasses, not smoked
00:23:02 --> 00:23:05 glass, not a stack of exposed film.
00:23:05 --> 00:23:08 ISO12312-2.
00:23:08 --> 00:23:10 And check the certification is genuine.
00:23:10 --> 00:23:12 Sweeping a telescope or binoculars
00:23:12 --> 00:23:13 around a daylight sky looking for
00:23:13 --> 00:23:16 Jupiter is exactly the situation where
00:23:16 --> 00:23:17 people get hurt.
00:23:17 --> 00:23:20 >> Anything else on the calendar? three to
00:23:20 --> 00:23:22 pencil in international observe the moon
00:23:22 --> 00:23:25 night on the 19th the equinox on the
00:23:25 --> 00:23:27 22nd spring for us autumn for our
00:23:28 --> 00:23:30 northern listeners and the harvest moon
00:23:30 --> 00:23:32 rising near Saturn on the 26th which
00:23:32 --> 00:23:34 after tonight's conversation feels like
00:23:34 --> 00:23:36 a nice bookend
00:23:36 --> 00:23:40 >> and that's episode 184
00:23:40 --> 00:23:42 has cut loose the module that carried it
00:23:42 --> 00:23:45 for eight years and is officially on
00:23:45 --> 00:23:46 approach to Mercury
00:23:46 --> 00:23:49 >> Blue Origin is building Mars a proper
00:23:49 --> 00:23:51 phone line. Saturn has grown a 10-sided
00:23:51 --> 00:23:54 crown at its south pole with a hand from
00:23:54 --> 00:23:56 an amateur astronomer in Outback New
00:23:56 --> 00:23:58 South Wales. And a second Chinese
00:23:58 --> 00:24:00 private company has put a reusable
00:24:00 --> 00:24:01 rocket into orbit.
00:24:01 --> 00:24:04 >> Full show notes, links to every primary
00:24:04 --> 00:24:07 source and the whole back catalog are at
00:24:07 --> 00:24:09 astronomyaily.io.
00:24:09 --> 00:24:12 >> You can find us on X, Instagram, and Tik
00:24:12 --> 00:24:14 Tok at astroaily pod. And if you've got
00:24:14 --> 00:24:17 a question or a correction, we genuinely
00:24:17 --> 00:24:19 want it. There's a contact form on the
00:24:19 --> 00:24:20 website. You'll find us at
00:24:20 --> 00:24:22 astronomydaily.io.
00:24:22 --> 00:24:25 >> If today's episode was useful, the
00:24:25 --> 00:24:27 single most helpful thing you can do is
00:24:27 --> 00:24:30 send it to one person who'd enjoy it.
00:24:30 --> 00:24:32 >> We'll be back tomorrow. Until then,
00:24:32 --> 00:24:34 clear skies.
00:24:34 --> 00:24:38 >> Clear skies. Astronomy Day.
00:24:38 --> 00:24:42 Stories we told.